MANILA, Philippines—Local stock prices tumbled on Friday as investors were unnerved by the overnight fall of stock prices on Wall Street that arose from escalating concerns over the US economy and debt crisis in Europe.

The main-share Philippine Stock Exchange index gave up 63.98 points or 1.42 percent to finish at 4,437.55 on Friday.

This developed as the closely watched Dow Jones Industrial Index slid by 512.76 points or a hefty 4.3 percent on Thursday to 11,383.68.

At the local market, all counters declined but the mining/oil, property and financial counters took the worst beating.

Turnover was extraordinarily high at P35.35 billion due to a series of block transactions on Manila Electric Co. at P90 per share. There were nearly nine decliners for every single gainer on the market.

Lepanto “A” (open only to local investors) and “B” (open to both local and foreign investors), Aboitiz Power, AGI, EDC, Metrobank, ICTSI, Megaworld, BDO, Philex and DMCI led the index lower. San Miguel Corp., Semirara, Atlas, Manila Mining, Leisure & Resorts and ORE also succumbed to profit-taking.

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The fundamentals of economics cannot be swept aside or denied. Capital accumulation ain’t gonna happen when labor’s surplus value (that portion that doesn’t go to bare minimum subsistence to keep the worker alive and functioning) is either miniscule (slave-wage conditions) or non-existent (unemployed labor). That’s basic Marxism, in case anyone needs reminding. OK, let’s get down to basics: If I’m employed gainfully, then I can provide for myself and my family to (1) Pay for basic necessities of food, clothing and lodging, (2) Pay for stuff beyond subsistence levels, such as for entertainment and other frivolous endeavors, and (3) Set aside some money to assure a sustainable living, including the education of my children. All these I, Juan dela Cruz the laborer, can do if I am employed and paid with living wages. If this capitalist system can’t do that, then when the system collapses, don’t blame it on me and people like me. Blame it on those who control capital who are too greedy to even humanely maintain the lives of workers who create all wealth. Sooner or later, workers will wizen-up and establish a system to replace this boom and bust system of a few haves and multitudes of have nots. That’s my stock tip of the day.

Denise Lora Ledesma

what does this drop exactly mean for our economy? please explain in practical terms wherein a none-finance person would understand..

http://twitter.com/ka_marks TheGUM

Stock markets have to do with business investments. A rising stock market corresponds to increasing business investment. If the stock market goes down, business investment goes down. If you have a sari-sari store and business is good, you might want to expand. If you don’t have enough money, you might ask a relative to invest. Your relative will invest for a share of the profits (he will invest if the outlook is good, let’s say the returns to his/her investment is better (mas maganda ang kita) than leaving money in the bank to collect interest). If your relative sees that your sari-sari store is NOT having more costumers (not growing), then he might decide to withdraw his investments and put it somewhere else (to another business or he might buy gold, which keeps its value or might even be growing in value, since a lot of people want it as a safe place to keep their money). When your relative withdraws investment, then your store becomes smaller and your business suffers even more. When your business scales down, then your profits go down. You might even decide to close down the store. Now all this time, the problem was that there were not enough customers, because people around your store were getting laid off or their salaries were lower because of shortened hours. The question is then, why were these neighbors’ work hours shortened or worse, why were they laid off? Answer: Their employer decided to hire somebody else who will do the job cheaper. This will happen and will keep on happening, down the line, until the point is reached that the worker willing to work for absolute slave wage labor is exhausted. This laborer at the end of the line will just have enough to eat so he can get to work until he drops dead on the job. If your store was prospering, then there were enough people gainfully employed. And there might be even more, so the sari-sari store will need to expand (your relative will invest more, buy more stocks, and the stock market expands).